Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2008 13:56:55 +0200
From: A.K. <andrej@andrejkoymasky.com>
Subject: The Strolling Players 06/18 (historical)

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THE STROLLING PLAYERS
by Andrej Koymasky (C) 2008
written on June 3, 1992
translated by the author
English text kindly revised by The Australian

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USUAL DISCLAIMER

"THE STROLLING PLAYERS" is a gay story, with some parts containing
graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion,
family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better
not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't
care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my
welcomed guest.

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CHAPTER 6 - The initials game

Vance sat down and said to Lord Lionel O'Neil, "Yes, it could be a way
to made time pass. Be so kind as to teach me, then."

Lionel started explaining him each piece's moves. While he was listening
to him, Vance looked at his beautiful face suffused with melancholy.

All of a sudden, he said, "Forgive me, milord, why don't you smile more
often? Your face becomes really beautiful when you smile."

"Do you think there could be some reason to smile, in this place?"

"How long have you been closed behind these walls?"

"Two years."

"And... do you know when you would get out?"

"Possibly only when they can take me out in a coffin. They very well
know that if they freed me I would immediately join those who fight
against the English oppressors. I am just an Irish enemy, I have no
escape."

"Were you taken prisoner in a battle."

"Yes, of course."

"So young? You were just sixteen, then."

"As soon as we are beyond puberty, we Irish swear to fight the invader.
Noblemen or craftsmen, countrymen or artists, without any distinction.
Even being of a clan or another makes no difference."

"So, you surely hate all we English people."

"No, we don't hate you, only your King and his noblemen."

"The King is still a child..."

"At whose name are accomplished the most base deeds. Aren't you too here
in the name of your king?"

"Right. Henry VI, the child King, the puppet King." Vance murmured.

"If you are overheard, you will be charged with treachery. Be careful!"

"At this point... I was sentenced to twenty years jail, in spite of the
skilled defence of Lord Mountbatten."

"We will have plenty of time to spend together then."

"That's so, Lord O'Neil."

"Call me Lionel, please. After all we have almost the same age."

"But you are a nobleman and I just an actor."

"No, we are just two prisoners, two boys that are buried alive. Two
useless beings, forgotten by God and by men... like everybody who
preceded us in these walls. Do you see those writings carved in the
walls stone?"

"Yes, but I am not able to read. In my room there are many, but I,
unhappily, am not able to understand them."

"Do they make you curious? I too was, at the beginning. I now know them
all by heart. They are prayers, invocations, curses. At times just names
and dates. They are sparkles of nostalgia, abysses of despair, sarcastic
epigraphs about the human justice, dreams of an unreachable freedom,
love declaration for lost lovers... I have felt tempted on a number of
occasions to add something of my own... I will possibly do it next time
when I feel next to become crazy. Not now, no, not yet."

"You are at least able to write, to read, you have even books... I can
just think, fantasize, silently repeat to myself the lines I did or
could do in the plays of my repertory..."

"Wouldn't you like learning to read and write?"

"Bah... why not? After all it could be another way to spend my time. But
wouldn't you please, now, go on teaching the chess game?"

Lionel nodded and resumed his explanations. They played for a short
while then the supper time came. The two servants had set the table in
the communal hall at the lower floor. Vance had accepted for some time
to give a fixed rate in the common found to buy the food with which they
integrated what the warden gave them. After the supper Shelley and
Trevor went to play cards. Oliver went back to his cell to end carving
his new work. Vance again went upstairs in Lionel's room, and the young
Irish boy started to play his lute.

"Is it a love song? Is it in your language?" Vance asked him.

"Yes it is in Irish and is a love song for my green and wretched
Ireland."

"I thought it was for a woman."

"No."

"Didn't you leave a woman in Ireland. Aren't you missing her?"

"No, I didn't leave any woman, and I don't miss any."

"At our age, our blood boils, our body feels the need for a contact."

"Are you missing a woman?"

"No... but at times... at times I feel so lonely in that bed downstairs.
I miss somebody with whom I can exchange some tenderness, somebody to
desire and from which feel desired..."

"You are therefore missing a woman. Why did you say you didn't?"

Vance didn't answer, but asked, "But you... did you ever made love?"

"Don't you think that these are questions best not put to ask to a
gentleman?"

"I didn't intend to offence you. Mine was just curiosity. I thought that
between two boys of the same age there would be nothing wrong in talking
of these matters. Anyway, if these subjects don't suit you, just don't
talk about them."

"You can possibly be right, Vance. The fact is that I am not accustomed
to talk of these matters. In the family or with the friends nobody ever
talks about our affective life, and even less about the erotic one. At
least not in Ireland."

"I don't know how it is amongst the English noblemen, but amongst us
actors, on the contrary, we always confided everything to each other.
When you share the food, the shelter, the work... why not to share all
the rest? With a stranger of course, I too, would keep silent about the
subject, but with a friend, I think, it would not be sensible. If there
is something really intimate, this is love, much more than sex, don't
you think?"

"Would you talk of it with me?" Lionel then asked him with an almost
unbelieving expression.

"Haven't we been sharing things for many weeks now? Of course I would
talk about it with you! Mainly with you because you are practically my
age, therefore understand me better than the others."

Lionel kept silent for some time, then resumed playing his lute. Then
without stopping to play it, asked, "Were you ever in love?"

"I don't think so, but I have had several rendezvous. Anyway they were
often purely physical ones. The first time it happened one year ago. I
was of your same age you were when you were captured by the Englishmen.
That first time it was just a physical thing... I was almost raped..."

"Raped? By a woman? How is that possible?"

Vance laughed and explained, "Of course not, they were two men."

"Two men? It had to have been horrible!"

"At first it was so. But then, you know... one gets used to anything...
so it started to seem agreeable."

"You mean that it can be agreeable for a man to be subjected to the
yearnings of another man?"

"Exactly. So much the better if the partner is skilled. I think that our
body is able to adapt much better than our spirit. The body has not
principles. It only has goals, and the main goal for our body is to feel
good, to enjoy, to get pleasure, don't you think? Once it gets its goal,
the body feels satisfied, regardless of how it reaches it without many
problems."

"Are you meaning that you... you mean that in the physical union between
two men there can be... pleasure?"

"Does this amaze you so much?"

"Yes, of course. I thought, I was always taught that the man is only
made to meet a woman and vice versa."

"Didn't you ever hear, up to now, that there are also men who have sex,
and at times also who love each other?"

"No, never. What I heard say is that there cannot be friendship between
a man and a woman but only love or indifference, and that the real
friendship is possible only between men. As I told you, we never talked
much about these subjects, but I got the impression it clearly was as I
say."

"I am not able to say if being with a woman, friendship is possible or
not. But I know that between two men, friendship, sex, and also love are
possible, even though I think I've never experience this last one."

"But shouldn't sex and love be coinciding, and is it not marriage the
real condition where both have to be?"

"In my opinion they can coincide or not, but it doesn't exist only in
marriage. Two real lovers, even though they are not married, share both
love and sex, don't you think so?"

"I don't know. I... I still don't know love and... and sex neither.
Therefore I am not able to tell you."

"At eighteen, you still don't know sex? You never had any... any
experience?"

"You forget it is now two years since I've been shut in here and that in
the two previous years I just fought day after day."

"But aren't you feeling that energy that demands to be relieved? You
never feel inside you the desire burning like an untameable fire?
Haven't you woken to the desire of having some of your flesh begging for
relief?"

"Do you mean... those moments during the day when... when some parts of
our body longs for caresses? Like for instance, when we wake up in the
morning?"

"Yes, I think so. Our hands know by instinct where to lead themselves
and what to do..."

"Well... it happens... that's sure. It's been the case for many years to
now..."

"And... always alone?"

"Certainly yes! Why?"

"Why? Because... that desire is not just a request for relieve, but
rather for a contact, for a mutual contact, an exchange, a relationship.
Giving oneself relief all alone, with one's hand, is nothing but a poor
palliative that afterwards leaves you unsatisfied. It is like the
difference between speaking with himself alone in the dark cell of an
English prison, just to avoid becoming crazy, and the free conversation
with a dear friend, or even a conversation with a passer-by, a foreigner
in you beautiful Ireland, do you see?"

Lionel assented with a light nod, than said, "But talking with a
passer-by or with a friend is something easy, natural, which is accepted
by everybody. I can quietly and safely talk with you, or my servant, or
Lord Shelley, but not do, with the same easiness, naturalness... those
other things."

"Of course. Any comparison is weak if you take it too literally. Just as
you wouldn't talk about any subject with one person, but choose to talk
about that subject with another one, according to the sensitivity of who
is listening to you. It is the same way you can find somebody with
whom... let yourself go to discuss more intimate things."

"But you, since you are shut here, have surely had to relieve yourself
alone, I guess."

"This is right but, you see, I don't intend to go on like this for
twenty more years, trust me. And you are the most delightful and
desirable person who is in this prison... and not only in this prison,
believe me."

"Are you making a proposal to me?"

"No, if this troubles you so much, but sincerely, I like you very much.
I would like doing it with you."

"I... I'm confused. I didn't wait for this conversation to lead to such
a proposal."

"Lionel, since the first time I saw you I felt attracted to you, I
confess to you. There are natural choices. You can well see how Lord
Shelley prefers to spend his time with Trevor, and that Oliver makes
conversation more willingly with your servant Stewart or with Charles.
You also see that we two are almost always together."

"Out of friendship, possibly out of affinity. Not necessarily for what
you... imply."

"Of course I'm not saying that the others, even though we can't even
exclude it... but that does not interest me. However, what concerns me
is... you. What I feel is more than just a liking, more than just
friendship or for that matter, even desire."

"But I... I don't feel like... like accepting your proposal. I am not
sharing your feelings towards me. I mean, I do feel a liking, friendship
as well, but not desire."

"Does it bother you, now, knowing what I am really feeling towards you?"

"No, Vance... not at all. I am rather sorry to disappoint you. I hope, I
think, we can become friends, deeply friends, because I really like you,
and because we are almost of the same age, and because a friend can help
pass the eternity we will have to spend in this place."

"It is alright with me. I accept with pleasure your friendship and I ask
you nothing more. I couldn't anyway. Such things have to arise from the
heart spontaneously. One cannot decide upon it with cold reasoning. I
mean, at times, one can decides about a carnal relationship with a
person in cold mindedness, that's true, but the fact that it happened to
me doesn't means that it could happen to you too. I may not have your
sensibility and your high-mindedness."

"You seem to be a really sensitive person. And yet you just told me,
that at times, you have decided to carnally unite with a person not out
of a particular affection or attraction, but just out of a rational
decision!"

"Well... usually there was some attraction, even though not affection. I
would not be able to unite with some people, not even with all my good
will, believe me. For instance, never with a woman."

"With a woman? You mean that, up to now, you had such relationship only
with men?"

"Yes. A woman's body doesn't stir in me any fantasy, any desire, no
matter how remote. I am not the only one who feels in this way, believe
me. Even amongst married men, there are some, who in reality, much
prefer people of their own sex, and who marry only for social
propriety."

"You are telling me things... these new, unexpected things. I can't but
believe you, as you say you experienced them first hand, and yet, they
seem to be so incredible".

"As much as it seems incredible to me that, being eighteen-years old,
you never heard about them, and yet, if you say so, I cannot but take
note and give you credence."

"In Ireland, believe me, all that concern sex, and even the use of the
word 'sex', are never uttered."

"Yes, I do believe you. It's a real pity. The carnal relationship
desired by both is one of the most beautiful moments in a human being's
life. If beyond the desire there is also affection, it becomes not only
beautiful, but sublime. It is sad having to talk alone, to eat alone, to
play alone and to fight alone. It is far better doing all these things
with another. Just think, then, how much better it would be enjoying the
body's pleasures with another, and indeed, giving pleasure to the
other's body."

"You say you are not cultivated, but you talk really well."

"I'm not able to read and to write..."

"As I told you, I can teach you."

Vance smiled and thought, "and I could teach you to make love", but he
said nothing.

For some days they didn't resume talking about the subject. Lionel
started to teach Vance reading and writing. They were spending hours on
books and sheets, with paper and pen, and often Vance had his fingers
stained with black ink. At the beginning he was feeling a little
disheartened because of his scrawls and the difficulty in recognizing
all the alphabet's letters, but then, almost suddenly, something seemed
to awaken inside him and started to make rapid progress.

One day, they were bending over a book and Vance was reading the words
one syllable at a time, when he managed to read a full line without
mistakes or interruptions.

"... the riches, the fame, the honours of this vain world..." Vance read
in one breath and looked triumphantly at Lionel.

Lionel looked at him with an approving smile, "Good, Vance. Really good!
Do you see that you are starting to read with self-assurance? You would
deserve a prize."

"Then... give me a kiss..." Vance whispered, shyly smiling.

Their faces were almost touching. They remained still, eyes upon eyes
then Lionel whispered with an almost inaudible voice, slightly hesitant,
"I was about to give it to you... but I don't feel ready, but I was
almost kissing you."

"Ready? Ready for what?" Vance asked, he too in a whisper filled with
emotion.

"For... for all the rest that a kiss usually is a prelude. For some days
now, I have feet the impulse to give you a caress, to girdle your
shoulders or your waist in an embrace, but I think it wiser to control
myself."

"Why are you then confessing it?"

"Because telling you seems to be the first step to show you what I
really want to do. Because I am feeling in some way compromised with
you. To be sincere with myself, I had hoped you would take that first
step. I am starting to desire it, but I'm fearful of making the first
move."

"Is it perhaps starting to be a burden for you to be always alone with
your hand?" Vance gently asked him.

"No, it is not so, believe me. It is rather the desire to destroy the
walls that separate us that makes of us, even if we are friends, two
strangers. It is possibly the desire to share with you more than a meal,
a conversation, a game, a lesson or just some time. It is the desire to
share with you something more important and more intimate. Yet... and
yet I am not still able."

"We have time. I will not force you, or push you on this road. It would
not be fair. I would possibly have already done it with another person,
but not with you. This has to be entirely your decision. I... I cannot
but hope and wait, in spite of my strong desire for you."

"I think you are right, Vance. Forgive me for my outspokenness and my...
forwardness."

"You are not at all impudent and I like you more because of that."

"I also like you more and more. Knowing that you desire me is making me
feel odd and rather beautiful emotions."

"Let's resume our lesson, now."

"Yes, I think it would be better."

Vance resumed reading but his mind was only partly absorbed with the
reading. The other part was thinking about what they had just told each
other and he was asking himself if he had been right deciding not to
make the first step. He was feeling he desired Lionel with a growing
intensity, with an increasing passion. He never felt anything like it
for any other man. Could it possibly be love?

Or was it only the fact that they were shut in there, together, for an
eternity? The fact that Lionel was the most beautiful, sweetest and
desirable in this small community?

That same night Vance, when he was alone in his bed, thought for a long
time of Lionel. He wasn't able to fall asleep. He was tossing and
turning from side to side, on his back or on his belly. At times a
strong erection arose, and he tried to imagine Lionel's naked body that
he still hadn't had the chance to see. Yes, he desired that young man,
but not only his beautiful body, not only the pleasure that he could get
touching it, making love with him.

He desired much more. To be able to enjoy again his smile, hearing the
sound of his voice, he desired belonging to him and that Lionel belonged
exclusively to him. He concluded that it was not only because they both
were prisoners. It would have been the same, or even better if they
could belong to each other while enjoying full freedom. Would Lionel in
that case follow him in the peddling actors' wagon? He, Vance, would
have surely followed him in the Irish battlefields to face the English
oppressor, even though he himself was an English boy! He would have
fought against his own people, for Lionel!

He finally fell asleep in the dead of the night with this awareness in
his heart, feeling happy. Yes, that surely was the love sung by poets
and celebrated in playhouses.

In the following days Lionel noticed a change in Vance. He did at that
point, know him well enough to detect things that the other prison
companions didn't seem to notice.

Thus, during one of their chess matches, he asked him, "What's up,
Vance? I've noticed a subtle change in you, in these last days."

"A change? How?"

"You seems me more thoughtful, less worried. Brighter, in a sense. I'm I
wrong?"

"I don't know... possibly not."

"Would you like telling me?"

"I would. But I'm afraid that there are things that words are not able
to express."

"You've never had difficulty with words."

"But I have now. At times I build in my mind a sentence, a verse, a
speech to express what is happening within me, but each single word,
each sentence, each expression, each accent, all seem inadequate to me,
empty and superficial. So I keep silent. I would rather to be silent
than to spoil the beauty of what I am feeling."

"You could at least give me a clue..."

"A clue?" Vance smiled, then sweetly said, "You! That is the clue."

"I? It's me who raises that light in your eyes? It's me who gives warmth
to your smile? Me?"

"Does it amaze so much?"

"No, in reality it should not amaze me, but that light, that warmth...
they are not just desire, are they? That light, that warmth must have a
name... yes, have a name."

"Do you hesitate uttering it?"

"Don't you?"

"Yes, I hesitate to pronounce it aloud. I'm afraid to spoil it. It is so
often used inappropriately".

"I can understand you. I too, would hesitate pronouncing it, but, have
you ever thought that my name and your name together form this name?"

"I don't understand..."

"Write my initials on this paper. No, write them again, first the
initial letter of my name then the initial of my surname. Well. Now add
after them your initials, on the same line... what did you get? Read the
word that results and you have written..."

"L O V E" Vance read.

"That's it! Love. Was that the word?"

"It is really beautiful. I never imagined that you and I, together...
give birth to this magic word."

"Wasn't this the name you didn't dare say?"

"Yes, it is this."

"Why were you afraid to say it?" Lionel asked.

"Because... because I hoped to hear you pronounce it first."

"Yes, for days now I have been shouting it, inside me."

"Do you love me?"

"Yes, I love you Vance, I can't deny it any more, either to myself or to
you. I love you, Vance. I love you!"

"I too, Lionel, and I want to be yours."

"And I yours. But..."

"But?" Vance asked, slightly alarmed.

Lionel took one of Vance's hands between his and gently squeezed it. He
smiled at him and murmured, almost with shame, "Be patient, about our
bodies. Lead me through the lanes of the physical love little by little.
I'm absolutely inexperienced, as you know. I entrust myself to you.
Don't go too fast... my love."

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CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 7

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In my home page I've put some more of my stories. If someone wants to
read them, the URL is

http://andrejkoymasky.com

If you want to send me feed-back, or desire to help revising my English
translations, so that I can put on-line more of my  stories in English
please e-mail at

andrej@andrejkoymasky.com

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